1991 – Chris Wright applies to grow hemp under an obscure hemp control law (4) passed to enable farmers to grow hemp to make rope for the navy during a hemp shortage caused by the Japanese takeover of the Philippines in WWII. The law required that individuals obtain a license through the MN Department of Agriculture. (5) The Ag Commissioner refused to issue a license until a federal license was obtained.(6) The DEA told Mr. Wright that they don’t even give doctors or pharmacists their licenses until they have all their state licenses.(7) So, Mr. Wright went back to the state and demanded that he be issued a license. Rather than observe the law, the commissioner went to the legislature to have the law repealed, a clear violation of the Constitution banning the passage of an ex-post facto law, and refused to issue Mr. Wright’s license.

1992 – Abortive attempt to run for Congress: Due to state law enforcement interference to undermine Chris Wright’s campaign fundraiser, called the Grassroots Gathering, Mr. Wright was unable to run for Congress.(8)(9)

The courts in three counties, Kanabec, Cass & Beltrami counties handed down restraining orders to prevent candidate Wright from holding a campaign fundraiser.

Beltrami County police set up a roadblock on the Beltrami County line specifically for candidate Wright and warned him that if he put down anywhere in the county they would arrest him and confiscate all his equipment. Since candidate Wright owned 76-acres in Beltrami County, he was forbidden from inviting guests to his own property in Turtle River.

State police literally chased candidate Wright from Bemidji to the Twin Cities to thwart his campaign fundraiser, despite the fact that candidate Wright had broken no law.

1996 – Following the ex-post-facto denial of Mr. Wright’s application to grow hemp, Mr. Wright discovered that it said in Article 13, Section 7, of the Minnesota Constitution that, “Any person may sell or peddle the products of the farm or garden, occupied and cultivated by him without obtaining a license therefor.”(10) Since the MN Constitution supersedes MN statutes, Mr. Wright realized that the only thing that makes drugs illegal is being in possession without a license. Since it was forbidden to require a license of farm products, marijuana being a farm product in 1906 when Alwin Rowe introduced this amendment, all subsequent laws forbidding marijuana were illegal. Mr. Wright didn’t even need the license required under the previous hemp control law and began growing marijuana as a matter of civil disobedience. However, Mr. Wright was arrested for growing 41-marijuana plants and appealed his case all the way to the MN Supreme Court.

1998 – Chris Wright runs for Governor: While running for governor Mr. Wright’s marijuana case came before the MN Court of Appeals.(11)

Of course, the courts have always found War on Drugs exception to the Bill of Rights. Historically speaking, the Courts could care less what the law says, or who makes the law, as long as they get to interpret the law. In addition, the powerful never vote to take away their police power. The court would have defied the laws of nature and God almighty to stop Chris Wright because, in their opinion, prohibition is the highest law in the land, not the Constitution. And when the Constitution said in Article 13, Section 7, "Any person may sell or peddle the products of the farm or garden WITHOUT obtaining a license therefore," the Court said, "NO, NO, NO, the word "WITHOUT" doens't mean "WITHOUT" it means "WITH." The Court said, "Mr. Wright, you can't sell unsafe products." despite the fact that they were provided with DEA Chief Adminstrative Law Judge Francis L. Young's (12) decision in 1988, that cannabis is "safer than many foods", noting that you can get a toxic effect from eating ten raw potatoes you can't eat enough cannabis to kill yourself and acknowledge that there wasn't a single cannabis induced fatality in 5000 years of recorded medical history. Wright also showed the court that soybeans are lethal eaten raw. The Court said that the right to the farm or garden was a "privilege, not a fundamental right." (13)(14) Of course, all rights in the Constituion are fundamental rights, but not according the the Court. Cannabis just happens to be able to feed, clothe, shelter and medicate the human body, something no other plant on earth can do. Obviously, the Court isn't concerned with what's fundamental to life itself. What the Court really said is, "cannabis is illegal cause we said so" and for no other reason.

Mr. Wright was prosecuted by two other candidates for governor, Atty. General Skip Humphrey and Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. There was no way the Court was going to hold itself accountable to law observance. They weren’t going to allow Mr. Wright to take away their police powers. It could have said, “Any person may sell or peddle marijuana” but the constitution went beyond that by saying, “the products of the farm or garden” meaning all cultivated plants. As expected the MN Supreme Court under Kathleen Blatz refused to hear Mr. Wright’s certiorari, basically affirming the precedence setting decision of the Court of Appeals.

1999 – Chris Wright starts the Global Marijuana March Minneapolis in conjunction with over 200 cities world-wide. Mr. Wright chooses Washburn Fair-Oaks Park because it is the symbolic beginning of the Drug War. The mother and father of narcotics prohibition were married at Fair Oaks. Elizabeth Washburn married Dr. Hamilton Wright who wrote the Opium Exclusion Act of 1909, The Hague Opium Convention of 1912, and the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914. Mrs. Wright was the first-ever woman diplomat given plenipotentiary power to sign treaties by President Calvin Coolidge for her participation in the Opium Advisory Committee to the League of Nations’ Geneva Opium Convention 1924. Mrs. Wright was recruited to assist Federal Bureau of Narcotics chief Harry Anslinger to gain passage of the Uniform Narcotics Control Act of 1932, helping Harry whip up reefer madness.

2002 – Chris Wright marches 400 Global Marijuana Marchers from Loring Park to the Minneapolis Convention Center where the Democratic State Convention was endorsing Roger Moe and Julie Sabo for the race for governor. In the post-911 atmosphere of the day, the convention security personnel were visibly disturbed, despite the peacefulness of the marchers.